Routledge companion to semiotics and linguistics

353 Pages·2001·1.789 MB·English

by  Paul Cobley

T R C
HE OUTLEDGE OMPANION
S L
TO EMIOTICSAND INGUISTICS
ThisRoutledge Companionis the first reference resource to combine the complex
and closely related fields of semiotics and linguistics. Edited by communications
specialist Paul Cobley, it has ten introductory essays written by pace-setting figures
in the field. These are followed by over 200 A–Z entries which cover:
• key concepts such as abduction, code, grapheme, modelling, philology and
syntax
• key individuals: Bakhtin, Chomsky, Peirce, Saussure, Sebeok and others
• key theories and schools, including American structuralism, pragmatism and the
Prague School.
The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics opens up the world of
semiotics and linguistics for newcomers to the discipline, and provides a useful
ready-reference for the more advanced student.
Paul Cobley is the author of Introducing Semiotics (with Litza Jansz), The
American Thrillerand the forthcoming New Critical Idiom title, Narrative. He is
the editor of Routledge’s Communication Theory Reader. Paul Cobley is Reader
in Communications at London Guildhall University.
Routledge Companions
Routledge Companionsare the perfect reference guides, providing everything the
student or general reader needs to know. Authoritative and accessible, they combine
the in-depth expertise of leading specialists with straightforward, jargon-free
writing. In each book you’ll find what you’re looking for, clearly presented –
whether through an extended article or an A–Z entry – in ways which the beginner
can understand and even the expert will appreciate.
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Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics
Edited by Paul Cobley
T R C
HE OUTLEDGE OMPANION
S L
TO EMIOTICS AND INGUISTICS
Edited by
Paul Cobley

London and New York
First published 2001
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2001 selection and editorial matter Paul Cobley;
individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Routledge companion to semiotics and linguistics / edited by Paul Cobley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Semiotics. 2. Linguistics. I. Cobley, Paul, 1963–
P121 .R692 2001
410—dc21 2001019312
ISBN 0-203-99608-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–415–24313–0 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–24314–9 (pbk)
To semiotician, linguist and, as he himself said
of Peirce, that ‘incomparable polymath’,
Thomas A. Sebeok and to
the memory of William C. Stokoe, champion
of ‘sign’and signs

C
ONTENTS
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Using this book xv
Part I Semiosis,communication and language 1
Introduction
Paul Cobley 3
1 Nonverbal communication
Thomas A. Sebeok 14
2 Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of the sign
Floyd Merrell 28
3 The origins of language
William C. Stokoe 40
4 Language in the ecology of the mind
Ray Jackendoff 52
5 Sociolinguistics and social semiotics
Gunther Kress 66

6 Pragmatics
Jef Verschueren 83
7 Language change
Jean Aitchison 95
8 The Chomskyan revolutions
Raphael Salkie 105
9 Linguistics after Saussure
Roy Harris 118
vii
CONTENTS
10 Discourse
Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski 134
Part II Key themes and major figures in semiotics and linguistics 149
References 289
Index 319

viii
N
OTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Initials of authors who contribute to Part II appear after each entry.
Jean Aitchisonis Professor of Language and Communication at the University of
Oxford. She is the author of a number of books, including (on language change)
Language Change: Progress or Decay? (3rd edn) and The Seeds of Speech:
Language Origin and Evolution.
Myrdene Anderson is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics
at Purdue University, Indianapolis. Her publications include On Semiotic
Modeling,Refiguring Debris – Becoming Unbecoming, Unbecoming Becoming,
andCultural Shaping of Violence(each co-edited). (MA)
Edna Andrewsis Professor of Slavic Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology, and
Chair, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Duke University, North
Carolina. Her monographs include Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture,
The Semantics of Suffixation in Russian, and Markedness Theory: The Union
of Asymmetry and Semiosis in Language. (EA)
Eugen Baer is Professor of Philosophy at Hobart and William Smith Colleges
in Geneva, New York, USA. His publications include Semiotic Approaches to
PsychotherapyandMedical Semiotics. (EB)
Kristian Bankovis Lecturer in Semiotics at the New Bulgarian University and at
Sofia University, Bulgaria. Among his publications in semiotics are ‘Text and
Intelligence’, in Snow, Forest, Silence: The Finnish Tradition of Semioticsand
Intellectual Effort and Linguistic Work(forthcoming). (KB)

Bernard Burgoyne is Professor of Psychoanalysis and Head of the Centre
for Psychoanalysis at Middlesex University. He is a Member of the European
School of Psychoanalysis, and is the editor of Drawing the Souland (with Mary
Sullivan) of The Klein–Lacan Dialogues. (BB)
Rocco Capozzi is Professor of Contemporary Italian Literature, semiotics and
literary theories at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Bernari.
Tra fantasia e realtà, Scrittori, critici e industria culturale,LeggereIl Nome
della Rosa e l’intertestualitàand is the editor of A Homage to Moravia(1992),
Scrittori e le poetiche letterarie in ItaliaandReading Eco. (RC)
Paul Cobleyis Reader in Communications at London Guildhall University. His
publications include Introducing Semiotics (with Litza Jansz), The American
ix